The British Media | The Savvy Senorita

A recent report investigated claims that foreign ‘health tourists’ are able to buy their way onto UK NHS patient lists with GP surgeries.

Apparently these cases of bribery aren’t a one off, but an epidemic. BBC’s Panorama sent undercover reporters to various GP surgeries, where they posed as ‘health tourists’. These reporters subsequently managed to buy their way onto GP lists for substantial amounts of money. They were then referred to hospitals for treatment, even though their complaints were not critical emergencies.

Every health tourist who pays a GP or Health Centre to be registered is handing their money over illegally, and depriving a UK citizen of treatment. The NHS is based on entitlement; as a UK resident you have access to the system, it has nothing to do with how much cash you cough up. This illegal act is heinous enough, but the fact that it then leads to abuse of, an advantage taking of an already under-strain system, is disgusting. People wait long enough for hospital referrals, and to have treatment; even then the service is slow and poor. There is also the post code lottery to contend with; what treatment and medication received depends on where you live in the country! Yet, ‘health tourists’ don’t have this concern, but they are not even UK residents!

People in the UK pay National Insurance to be included in the health system, but they have no privileges. Why then should a health tourist?! This abuse of paying for registration to gain access to the NHS should be dealt with swiftly, before such precious resources are drained dry from the UK residents. Where are the tighter and tougher independent checks, controls and regulations for surgeries to adhere to, to prevent abuses of power? Who is checking on the NHS to make sure money isn’t being wasted and resources aren’t being misused? I mean, it is only a billion pound a year to keep the NHS ticking over, shoddy as it is; but hey that is OK, we have money and resources to waste. The NHS is open to everyone without one question being asked! It seems the NHS believes it has money to burn!

If you are not eligible for free treatment then you should be paying for it, it is that simply surely?! Yet, it is estimated that over the last 3 years health tourism has been allowed to get away with depriving the NHS of over £40 million! It is law that a person has to have been living in the UK for the last year to receive free treatment; although GP surgeries, walk in surgeries and A&E services can overlook this if the case is deemed severe, infectious or life threatening. Hospitals should check a patient’s residential status to ensure they live in the UK, but they don’t; in fact 133 Hospital Trusts didn’t check at all! A mistake, well not one to be forgiven when it has cost the country millions!

People who venture to the UK just to take advantage of what they believe to be another ‘free’ system available for them to abuse should be stopped. It is unfair to expect UK residents to continue paying into a system that is so poorly regulated, and so often abused. Would any other billion pound business be so lax in their regulations and accounts? NO! People in the UK are already paying into the system and hoping they will receive good treatment, but every year the satisfaction with service declines, as money leaks from the NHS. Now one of the reasons for such leakage has been revealed it should be fixed immediately. The NHS’s belt needs tightening, or UK residents will continue to lose out.

The sign says it all!

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I was watching an interview with Writer Seth MacFarlane a few weeks ago, whilst answering one of the questions asked him, half way through he uttered an expletive. The interviewers were aghast and immediately lurched forth with profuse apologies for MacFarlane’s mistake; insisting he hadn’t meant it and that he hadn’t realised what he had said was wrong. MacFarlane was shocked by their response, you could visibly see it; I suppose he hadn’t realised UK audiences are ‘anal’ about swear words being spoken on television. His retort to all of this panic was something I have always agreed with, but it has never been said as a response on television; ‘oh so I can’t say a rude word, but it is OK for breasts to be shown in UK newspapers and magazines’. Needless to say the interviewers didn’t reply to this.

Yet, it is a question that needs answering as it is a contradiction we all accept. It is pathetic and unjustified; no swearing and yet there are far worse things getting aired via the media, oh, and going on daily throughout the world! For Heaven’s sake people, get a grip, it is ONLY a word (swear)!

Double standards? I think so, but yet the UK seemingly thrive on that! Actions speak louder than words, and I’d prefer to hear a swear word being used than see the constant objectification of women on every advert, and in every magazine shoot! Hell, you only have to switch to MTV for a little bit of sex education; between gyrating and semi clad women to the explicit lyrics, sex is everywhere! However, I don’t see that being apologised for; but as usual any swear words mixed into the lyrics which glorify having sex, sex and more sex, are ‘bleeped’ out! Swear words are just a step too far, too obscene for viewers! The videos are OK though; women stripping, lap-dancing, being a sex object, being a sex toy, being cast as a dumb fool; but if they swear, well that won’t be tolerated!

Hey, no problem it is great demonstrating to everybody, mainly the young and impressionable that these ‘MTV’ roles represent all women are, and want to be. This is a must for every 5 year old’s education I am sure. MTV has no ‘watershed’, anyone can watch at any-time and be inundated with images of what women are good for, sex. Great self-esteem boost for all women out there; thanks MTV for pimping women as a ride!

I suppose people think I have a prudish outlook, you know what, I don’t care. The measure of me is not just my body parts, my female gender; I am a human and want to be treated with respect, and as a person with a brain! I personally don’t live my life to be in servitude to a man’s penis, although I do like sex, I am not an object!
I feel it is what we are subjected to daily that makes us believe what we see is acceptable, and is then adopted as the norm. We have been drip fed naked flesh and provocative images for so long we can’t remember life without them all. I just want to know why it is deemed necessary to sell; shower gel, coffee, trainers, washing powder, chocolate and God knows what else, with naked flesh and sexual invitation? Why does all this nakedness appear mostly on adverts aimed at women? Why are these images of rampaging, semi clad and sexually desperate women supposed to sell things? Who is identifying with them? What has any of it got to do with washing powder?

If you look at adverts from 10 years ago, there is a marked difference in today’s variety; the barriers of what is normal and accepted by the public are being pushed all the time. So subtle are the changes and developments that we don’t see it, we just accept it as the norm, see it as what society is like and we don’t question why. How further can it go? Will women just end up like meat on a stick; not human, but just worth their flesh?

I suppose we can’t now escape naked forms, and our enjoyment in seeing them all the time, well then, let’s have some fair sharing and distribution. More men on display and the ‘HOT’ variety please! Naked women are on show everywhere for everything; dancing to the tune of male advertisers and marketing execs, DJs, Rappers and so on and so on; if their lack of clothing has no link to subjugation, sexual pressure, objectification or dominance of fully clothed males over naked females, then why are there so few naked men?

If naked bodies and sex are cool, and the world is OK with them, why aren’t there more naked, gyrating men selling women products? Men in adverts, on television, in photo shoots; pandering to women’s sexual fantasies, being women’s sex toys, being objectified by women, losing dignity and self-respect for women’s needs. I wonder if those ridiculous double standards have anything to do with it; or maybe, it is because more men hold positions of power to decide what gets published, televised and so on? For example, the penis, adverts about condoms, the contraceptive pill and sexually transmitted diseases aren’t aired on the television or in magazines. Why are such things relegated to specific times and places; late nights, certain channels and magazines? I mean sex is everywhere, so surely we should see the other half of the species who have sex too, and not just the women of world being stripped bare? Surely we should all know about the male penis and condoms? We see sanitary products on the television all the time, but no condoms, no penis.

I wonder why half the population, who are women, are happy with this flaw. Liking sex, liking men, enjoying being seen as attractive or sexy, looking after your-self; all of this has nothing to do with despising objectification and subjugation. Being seen as a woman should be on your terms, not what a faceless industry tells you, no dictates that you are or should be. To me it seems they are destroying femininity, unpicking it with smut for money. It’s a cheap and nasty joke, which women are the brunt of. You’d think these industry men would have another punch line by now, but then, ‘small minds’ and all that!